THINGS THAT ARE NEW

My journaling.

I really love journaling. I have a very extensive journaling routine that includes drawing patterns on the pages of my paper diary, making notes with a pencil, pen and my POSCA markers, and writing my thoughts down in an app called “Morning Pages”. I find that the combination of writing free flow in the Morning Pages app, and scribbling small reminders of things to do on paper and also decorating the pages and transferring all of this data to Goodnotes and printing my journal once per year really works for me to be more productive.

Recently I tackled several of my eternal to dos that sat in my diary and I never got to doing them. What changed?

I listened to a podcast by Tara Brach and she mentioned that to deal with anxiety and overthinking it is very good to be “more inside the body and less in the head”. After listening to this episode I realized that I was not sleeping well because I am not moving enough.

Recently I stopped watching Netflix against anxiety. I had the feeling that whatever content I consume (like series or books about killers or psychopaths) somehow drips down and infuses my mood and energy. That is why I started listening to audiobooks on Audible and choosing higher level Pulitzer Prize winning fiction or classics.

I also realized that my children used to borrow books from the library that were low quality. The especially liked books about famous game characters such as books about Starwars, Ninjagos, Playmos or Pokemon while I was bored by these books. Since starting to read with my children is becoming more and more important since they are now 9 and 11 years old and basically do not read at all, I realized that the quality of books is really important. I need to want to read the books too to be able to read them out loud.

I started to cook again The thing that made cooking possible was cleaning out all the food that I had in my storage. Only after cleaning the freezer, fridge and storage cupboard was I able to start over. I find that cleaning and uncluttering my home leads to more and more energy. This is how I eventually started to do things that were stuck in my to do list for ages.